annual report 2014 - spie.org · 2 2. chapter activities – year 2014 the first half of the year...
TRANSCRIPT
February, 2015
Annual report 2014 Bilkent University – SPIE student chapter
Mite Mijalkov SPIE STUDENT CHAPTER PRESIDENT –
BILKENT UNIVERSITY
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1. Members of Bilkent University SPIE chapter
1.1. Elected officials
Mite Mijalkov – President
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Merve Yagmur Yardimci* - Vice president
Naveed Mehmood* - Secretary and treasurer
* These officials are in the process of the renewing their membership to SPIE and will serve as
main organizers for FOCUS 2015 – Ankara (if granted, please see section Future activities)
1.2. Members
Seyma Canik
Mustafa Erol
Tugba Kiris
Mohammad Amin Nazirzadeh
Ercag Pince
Burak Tekcan
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2. Chapter activities – Year 2014
The first half of the year 2014 was spent on our organization of the student conference IONS 15
which was a coordinated effort between the SPIE chapters of Bilkent University and Middle East
Techical University in addition to the corresponding OSA chapters. The activities included inviting
speakers for the conference, searching for additional funding and promoting the conference among
the student body in Turkey.
The second half of the last year was spend trying to recruit new members for our chapter. Namely,
for many members last year was the one in which they successfully defended their M.S. thesis and
moved on to another institutes so we organized few gatherings, seminars explaining our goals. For
more details, please see the next sections.
2.1. Organization of IONS 15
Figure 1: Participants at IONS 15 in front of the conference venue
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IONS 15 took place on 2-5 July 2014 in
Bilkent University. The conference attracted
more than 100 participants of which 45 were
from outside of Turkey, including graduate
students from University of Zanjan – Iran,
University of Oxford – UK, The University of
Naples Federico II – Italy etc. In addition, we
were able to attract a very diverse audience
from inside Turkey, coming from Bilkent
University, METU, Bogazici University,
Hacettepe University etc.
The scientific part of the conference included a series
of talks given by our plenary speakers: Dr. H. Phillip
Stahl – Immediate Past President of SPIE, Dr. Philip
Russell – President of OSA and Dr. Charles M. Falco
– Chair of Condensed Matter Physics at University of
Arizona. These talks were complemented by the talks
of the local invited speakers including, Dr. Rasit
Turan from METU and Dr. F. Omer Ilday from
Bilkent University. The invited speakers session
ended with the inspiration talk of Dr. Giovanni
Volpe, who is also the advisor of our chapter, who
shared his opinions and offered some most insightful
remarks on how to succeed in science and become
respected researchers in our respective fields.
The conference ended with a trip to the beautiful historic region of Cappadocia, which was a great
opportunity to visit some exceptional natural wonders as well as strengthen our friendship, have
fun together hoping that our acquaintances last for the many years to come.
This conference was partly supported by the SPIE Activity grants (combination of the grants
obtained from Bilkent University and METU) as well as the travelling lecturer program of SPIE.
Figure 2: Yazgan Tuna (one of the IONS15 organizers and former member of our SPIE student chapter) together with Dr.Philip Russell, Dr. Charles M. Falco and Dr. Giovanni Volpe
Figure 3: Organizing team of IONS 15
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2.2. Coffee breaks with the local invited speakers
Many students expressed their satisfaction
from the talk “A PhD is not enough” from
Dr. Giovanni Volpe. They felt that such
talks, about the challenges of publishing
in physics to the solving research
problems or creating a peer networks was
very rewarding in the sense that it gave
them the feeling that they are not alone
with their problems and had the positive
effect on them by providing the initiative
and encouragement for their ongoing
work. That prompted us to organize few
coffee sessions with professors from
Bilkent University in which the students
could discuss the strategies for solving problems, how to choose the next steps in their careers etc.
Some of the professors that agreed to participate include Dr. Giovanni Volpe, Dr. Atilla Aydinli,
Dr. Miguel Navascues etc. All the coffee breaks were informal and took place at the lounge at the
Advanced Research Laboratories (ARL) at Bilkent Unviersity.
2.3. Promotions during the Physics Department Colloquia
The Physics department in the Bilkent
Universities organizes a series of colloquia on
various topics that brings together many
students eager to learn. Although we were not
directly involved in the organizing of these
lectures, we used this opportunity to speak to
many graduate and undergraduate students,
spreading the work about our activities and
conferences. We believe that part of the ample
participation at IONS 15 was due to our
extensive advertising plan and these colloquia
were the perfect platform to perform this
advertising.
Figure 4: Giovanni Volpe during his talk: "A PhD is not enough"
Figure 5: Some chapter members on a dinner with Dr. Rasit Turan
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2.4. Meeting with prospective members
After the successful organization of IONS we
faced with shortages in our chapter members part
to the graduation of few members. Therefore,
towards the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015
we organized a couple of informal dinners, in
order to attract new members to join our chapter
and participate actively in our future planned
activities. We have some new members join and
we expect a few more in order to have our
chapter in good standing and continue with our
work.
This dinners were supported by the remaining
funds from the IONS conference, in part from the
activity grants supplied by SPIE and a
conference grant granted by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey.
3. Total expenses
3.1. IONS 15
Transportation – 500$
Food – 2450$
Welcome bags – 50$
Student travel grants – 2000$
Lecturer travel grants
3.2. Coffee breaks with invited speakers
Cookies – 200$
Tea and coffee – 50$
3.3. Physics department colloquia
No expenses
Figure 6: First meeting of the chapter student members in 2014
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3.4. Dinner with prospective members
200$ per dinner
We used SPIE activity grants from Bilkent University and METU to fund a portion of the above
expenses. Other funds were raised from The Scientific and Technological Research Council of
Turkey and OSA as well as sponsorship from UNAM – Bilkent University and GUNAM – METU.
In addition we used our travel lecturer program from SPIE in order to fund the travel expenses of
one plenary speaker.
4. Future Activities
4.1. First meeting
The purpose of this meeting will be to bring everyone (new students such as freshmen as
well as participating members who were not involved too much into our activities) up to
speed and to inform them about our activities and our goals for 2015. This meeting is
planned to take the form of a seminar about our SPIE Student Chapter and include the
presentation of Dr. Giovanni Volpe and our guest, Dr. Alpan Bek, the academic advisors
of the chapter at Bilkent Uni. and METU respectively.
4.2. Seminars
We are planning to have few seminars this year. These seminars will be given by
representatives of companies interested in optics, photonics and other branches of applied
physics. These seminars will be opened for general audience.
4.3. FOCUS 2015 – Ankara
We are hoping to organize a FOCUS conference in July, 2015. The conference will be
held in Bilkent University and is organized with the cooperation of the SPIE student
chapter in METU. We have already submitted our application form for this conference
and in anticipation of the decision whether we are going to be given this opportunity, we
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did some preliminary preparations such as recruiting new members to be part of the
organizing committee, making preliminary contact with some speakers we are planning to
invite as well as contacting some companies and TUBITAK for additional funds. Having
had the chance to previously organize such a conference we are confident that we can learn
from our experiences and have a successful and fun FOCUS conference in Ankara.